Sandra McLellan (Cork East, Sinn Fein)
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I welcome the witnesses and thank all the organisations for the tremendous work they do. I wish the Minister of State, Deputy Deenihan, well in his new role. I had a lot of engagement with him in his previous role as Minister of State at the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht, and I know he was very passionate about that. I am delighted he is here before us today and that we have the opportunity to discuss these issues across the diaspora.

Many issues have been covered. I want to touch on one or two health issues. The presentation stated that smoking rates are declining slowly in the Irish community, which has to be welcomed. I wonder why that is happening. There are major issues around obesity, poor nutrition and alcohol, and lifestyle and health are connected to that. We all know people who come from poor socio-economic backgrounds are generally in poorer health.

Barriers to treatment were mentioned. What type of screening programmes are available to the Irish community? There is a very strong link between alcohol and cancer, and we had a briefing session on that in the House last week.

The witnesses discussed some tranches of funding in the presentations. From where do they get their funding? The funding mentioned was minute.

With regard to the undocumented Irish, they are covered for emergencies or catastrophic illnesses, but not for routine procedures. I did not think they were entitled to any health cover. It was said that children are entitled to receive medical care. That is news to me because I often wondered what families did if they or their children were sick. It is interesting to know that they are entitled to medical cover. I would not have known that. I understood that was the case in New York; I do know if it applies across the United States.

The case of a 64 year old man who had been working as a cook, and was helped to repatriate and return to his family, was mentioned. Do the witnesses repatriate people who do not have families to return to? Where do they go? A person of 64 years of age does not qualify for a pension. Some people who return from abroad have difficulties accessing services here because they have been away so long and do not have entitlements. If they do not have families to return to, do the organisations ensure that they will be assisted financially or will be entitled to benefits and housing in the State? I am curious about that.